


But Still, Like Dust, I'll Rise

by Seren_dipity



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Suffering, depressed oikawa, how do i tag this besides suffering?, oikawa suffers a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 08:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7794529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seren_dipity/pseuds/Seren_dipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You may write me down in history<br/>With your bitter, twisted lies,<br/>You may trod me in the very dirt<br/>But still, like dust, I’ll rise.</p>
<p>A short, Oikawa-centered fic about going through feeling like you're not good enough and feeling empty.<br/>The title is from the poem "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Still, Like Dust, I'll Rise

There's an emptiness that Oikawa feels during the night, when he's done with practice, and his bad knee aches and his hands still tingle from practice. It's especially bad when Oikawa stays late for practice, the days when he leaves the gym alone, the sky already dark. It's an emptiness that Oikawa doesn't understand, but just kind of expects now. He welcomes it as he stares at the small glow-in-the-dark stars he stuck to his ceiling when he was eight. The emptiness grows with the pain in his bad knee. The emptiness grows as the amount of days until the Spring Tournament lessens and lessens. 

Some days the emptiness is so bad that Oikawa feels like he's suffocating, and it takes him hours to finally fall asleep. He wakes up with puffy red eyes from crying himself to sleep, and he dives into his small reserve of foundation to cover up the evidence.

The weeks leading up to the Spring Tournament, the emptiness starts to leak into his time on the court, too. The closer they get to the tournament, volleyball becomes less fun. The court that was once Oikawa's one true home becomes synonymous with failure and self deprecation. The scars on his knees and elbows that once reminded Oikawa of how hard he has worked, now remind him of all the days he has spent off the court. They remind him of all the minutes and hours he could be perfecting his tosses, of perfecting his jump serve.

Perfection.

Perfection.

Perfection.

That is what he strives for, those weeks before the Spring Tournament.

And it is the one thing that Oikawa cannot achieve.

The emptiness spreads with every failed set, with every misstep on the court, with every sharp pain that jolts through his body when he puts too much pressure on his bad knee. The emptiness hisses words in his ear. Reminding him that he'll never be good enough. That he'll never be the best. That he can never achieve any more than he already has.

That he needs to be perfect.

Perfect.

Perfect.

And he tries.

God, he tries.

He comes home later and later each night, opening the front door of his house with weak knees and burning hands, barely registering that it says '1:15' on the clock in his room as he collapses on his bed.

Oikawa hides it well. He hides the hollowness he sees in his own eyes in the mirror with obnoxious laughs and bright grins. With arrogance and pompousness. The bigger he could make the person he should be, the perfect, perfect, perfect Oikawa, the less people saw of the real him. The more distracting his smile and his hair and his words were, the less of his tears were visible.

But Iwaizumi saw the tears.

He saw them without even having to see Oikawa cry. He wasn't good with words, and in all honesty, Oikawa scared him. Iwaizumi was scared of the way Oikawa could go from Saint to demon in just seconds. He was afraid of the power in Oikawa's form, then the way the power dissipated like water as soon as he thought no one was looking. Iwaizumi was afraid of saying the wrong thing to Oikawa, of saying the wrong thing and breaking Oikawa completely. Iwaizumi knew that that was a stupid thought. He couldn't break Oikawa. He doubted anyone was strong enough to break Oikawa.

Only Oikawa was the one that could break himself.

And it seemed like he was doing a good job of it.

Fake arrogance and confidence could get Oikawa far, but it couldn't hide the dark tint of dark circles under several layers of concealer. It couldn't hide the blisters riddling his feet, or the scabs and scars decorating his knuckles. And it couldn't hide the deep red of his weak knee when Oikawa over worked it.

It couldn't hide the way Oikawa winced when his feet hit the ground after a jump serve. It couldn't hide his disappointment when his set was a millimeter off, or when his serve was picked up.

And when Spring Tournament came, it couldn't hide the way Oikawa swayed on his feet, or the lost look in his eyes. And not even Oikawa's rock hard determination could hide the way he favored his weak knee during their first game.

When the volleyball spun past Oikawa's head and into the out of bounds, signaling the end of Aobajosai's participation in the tournament, Oikawa was the first place the team looked. To their captain, their pillar. Oikawa kept his head high, face eerily blank as he made his way to the coach.

Oikawa felt hollow.

He felt it in every finger and in every vein. He wondered if you could puke if you had nothing in your stomach. He hadn't eaten since a granola bar this morning. The emptiness wrapped around his neck like a noose, and Oikawa welcomed it with open arms. It was better than feeling. The loss would hit him later, at night, when he could finally cry the ugly tears he could feel welling up and constricting his throat.

And then Ushijima had shown up, adding insult to injury. Every word he said was like salt in a wound, sharp pain that built up in his chest. But now that Ushijima was there, his voice was added to the emptiness constricting Oikawa's innards.

You weren't good enough.

You failed.

You chose wrong.

Did he choose wrong? At first Oikawa's thought was 'yes.' Everything he chose was wrong. Every day he took off of practice back in middle school, every fatty food he ate, every time he left practice with the rest of his team when he could have stayed and practiced more.

But Aobajosai.

Was that wrong?

Could Oikawa look at Matsukawa and Hanamaki and say that every moment he shared on court with them was a mistake? Could Oikawa look at Kunimi or Kindaichi and say that every school function, every practice, every celebration was a mistake? Could Oikawa look at Yahaba and say that everything that Oikawa taught him, every trick and skill, was a mistake?

Could Oikawa look Iwaizumi in the eyes and say that every toss he gave him was a mistake?

Could he look his team in the eyes, and tell them that being their captain was a mistake? That every drop of sweat he spilled, that every ball he set, that every serve he did...

Was a mistake?

Oikawa felt a lot of emptiness inside, but there was a little space where his heart maybe was, that was filled with every moment on the court. Every moment of pride he felt when Yahaba set. Every satisfying smack as Kindaichi blocked a spike. Every hand that had touched his shoulder when they huddled before and after a game. Every time his hand had connected to a volleyball. Every time his eyes locked onto Iwaizumi's right before Iwaizumi spiked his toss into the other team's court.

And Oikawa let his mask break away. The one that kept every emotion from oozing out, and kept every tear in his eyes. He smiled, wide and slightly manic.

"Listen up, Ushijima."

All of them... Kunimi, Kyoutani...

"Not once have I considered my choice to be the wrong one."

...Kindaichi... Yahaba... Watari...

"My volleyball career,"

...Hanamaki...

"Is far from over."

...Matsukawa...

"You'd best never forget,"

...Iwaizumi...

"This worthless pride of mine."

Oikawa turned and walked away without waiting for a reaction from Ushijima. Oikawa didn't need one.

Kageyama couldn't break him. The whole of Karasuno couldn't break him. Even Ushijima couldn't break him.

Oikawa would put himself back together, just like he had always done.

But he would do it with his teammates, his friends, by his side.

Because he still may believe that he made a lot of wrong choices concerning volleyball.

But them... His friends...

They were not the wrong choice.

And of course he spent that night with wet eyes and hiccupy sobs, clutching at his chest and begging for this pain to go away.

But just like the way every set he ever tossed had etched itself into his hands with scars and blisters and callouses, Oikawa had etched his name into Aobajosai's court, and into every court he had ever stepped foot on.

And he would make sure that they never, ever,

Forgot him.

**Author's Note:**

> I relate really strongly to Oikawa, even down to his bad knee, and I just wanted to write something that kind of expressed my own emotions and how I believed Oikawa must have felt before and after the Spring Tournament.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I love you all!
> 
> EDIT: I created a mix of songs that I listened to while writing this, so if you want to give it a listen, you can find it here: http://8tracks.com/seren_dipity_/but-still-like-dust-i-ll-rise


End file.
